Immigration and Nativism.edited
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Immigration and Nativism
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Immigration and Nativism
Nativism has been a persistent story in American history since the colonial era. However,
Nativism in the first decades of the twentieth century leading up to the 1920s saw nativism
take new features that made it unique in America
(
Young, 2017). The paper discusses what
made nativism unique or new in America in the first two decades of the twentieth century and
explains whether nativist beliefs still persist today.
The immigrants in America between 1900 and 1930 were majorly people from Southern
and Eastern European and Mexican; thus, the recent surge of nativism in the first decades of
the twentieth century was made against this kind of group. The nativists argued that this
group was inferior and low-skilled to the earlier group that involved the Northern and
Western Europeans
(
Young, 2017). They believed this set of immigrants would slowly but
surely change the face of America as they would be able to Americanize due to their social
and political ideologies. As such, many Nativist Americans hold that America would no
longer live up to its standards as the land of opportunities. As such, they believed these
people were diluting Americans’ values and culture and that they were responsible for the
social problems America started to face, like political corruption, war, and poverty, thus
leading to the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1924 that restricted the number of
immigrants in America
(Yuill, 2021)
. Additionally, the Americans believed these immigrants
were changing their neighborhoods by trying to implement their own morals into the deeply
engrained American ethics. Also, what made nativism unique or new in America in this
period was the Americans’ hate of Germans caused by the then-current issues of wars.
Nativism still persists in America today. Some American hold nativist reasoning using
derogatory stereotypes to justify their hostility toward immigrants, like Muslims are terrorists
and Mexicans are rapists
(
Young, 2017). As such, in recent years, nativism has been held on
the basis of national security, as nativists say that those of Muslim-majority countries pose a
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threat to American security and cultural values. This mindset is set from the incident of the
9/11 attack and is used to perpetuate nativism against Muslims in America
(Yuill, 2021)
.
Additionally, nativism persists in the reasoning that immigrants will take jobs away from
native-born Americans and cause strains in public resources like education. These fears of
immigrants have been used to perpetuate nativism in current American society and, as such,
led to calls for stricter immigration policies.
In conclusion, nativism has been a constant feature in American history. In the first two
decades of the twentieth century, nativism was made against the group of immigrants from
Southern and Eastern Europe and Mexicans. This was made by the belief and reasoning that
the group was inferior to other groups and was instilling their own morals into already
entrenched American ethics and values. Additionally, they believed the group was changing
the face of America. Today, nativism has also been constant in America due to national
security reasoning and the need to protect Americans from job losses from immigrants.
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References
Yuill, K. (2021). “America must remain American”: The Liberal Contribution to Race
Restrictions in the 1924 Immigration Act.
Federal History
.
https://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/13154/
Young, J. (2017).
Making America 1920 Again? Nativism and US Immigration, Past, and
Present - The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS)
. The Center for Migration
Studies of New York (CMS). https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-making-america-1920-
again/